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[Krawdad]

So I have a FB that I am trying to kill with a ballista, but for some reason the arrows appear to be passing right over it even though my marksdwarves are able to shoot it.

The FB is "an enormous humanoid composed of amber. It has wings and appears to be emaciated. Beware its deadly dust!" Deadly dust is an understatement, this thing has killed about 20 of my best military dwarves and I've had to lock down the previously well defended cavern entrance.

I dug out some alternate tunnels surrounding the entrance and carved fortifications to have marksdwarves shoot it from outside of dust range, which worked in a way. They've shot the thing with at least 20,000 wooden bolts by now and the FB is missing both its arms and one foot, with every other body part dark red, but it just won't die! The ballista was supposed to be the fix, but the arrows aren't connecting with the target for some reason. The arrows fly in and occupy the same tile as the FB then keep going and there is not even a combat report to indicate that it hit and passed right through, like can happen with skeletons.

I'm a little stumped here and would appreciate any tips or advice on this if anyone has any.

[Lt_Alfred]

Try a controlled cave-in good luck!

[Krawdad]

Unfortunately I don't have much room to dig from above in order to arrange a cave in. Though I'm not that familiar with cave in mechanics so maybe there is a way and I just don't see it. The layout is like this:


            |...............................................
            |................................XX............
======..............................=D=..........
B=====..............................=M=..........
======..............................=  =..........

where: B -- ballista, D -- artifact door, M -- the forgotten beast, = -- fortification, | -- wall, X -- up/down stair.

Part of the problem is that those stairs are actually part of the central stairway for my fort (oops!). The fortification hallway the FB is in extends much further and normally everything dies before even getting close to the stairwell, so it hasn't been a problem before. I had to seal off the stairwell from 2 z up so the dust would stop drafting into my dining hall, which is only about 5 z up from this level.

Another oddity is that while most dwarves that get dusted become paralyzed and die within a day, there are actually two dwarves on this level that have been paralyzed for several years. They are currently out of sight of the FB, so it's not constantly blasting dust right now, but I know that as soon as I open this level some dwarves will try and rescue the two and end up getting many more people killed. This complicates the death-from-above idea because at least a few dwarves would need access the z level directly above this one, which still has working stairs to this level. Last time I opened it up briefly to try and build a door, 4 dwarves lost their lives because they wanted to enjoy the cool breeze of the cavern, even though everything on that level is forbidden.

I guess I'll just keep training my marksdwarves on it for now, maybe another 20,000 bolts will do the trick!

[Aramara Meibi]

try metal bolts? maybe one will snipe of his head.

[Victor6]

What's directly above the fb? I had a similar issue with an emerald one a while back. 4 years of shooting only chipped it.

If you have open space leading up to a ceiling the simple solution is build an alternate staircase leading up, then channel a path down to it (you may lose a dwarf depending on your forward planning, try to make sure you have a z-level or 2 inbetween, then assign a new garbage dump at the top and bludgeon it senseless with whatever rocks\furniture\prisoners you've got lying around.

You can use a hatch cover part way down if you want a controlled mass of junk. - Sooner or later the amber beast will break up and you'll be left with some insanely heavy body parts to use if it ever happens again.

[Krawdad]

Alright I think I'll try that and just burrow all of my other civilians beforehand so they don't go running to their deaths. I think I'll start with dropping some shoddy Nickel statues on it 

[Dirst]

Alright I think I'll try that and just burrow all of my other civilians beforehand so they don't go running to their deaths. I think I'll start with dropping some shoddy Nickel statues on it 

"This is a nickel statues of the forgotten beast UninvitedGuest and dwarves.  The dwarves are dropping a nickel statue on the forgotten beast.  This statue commemorates the dropping of this statue onto the forgotten beast UninvitedGuest in 1059."

[Moo]

Deadly dust

Maybe dig out a checkerboard pattern, and force the FB to path through that?  Your melee dwarves should get close without dying to ranged attacks, giving them a chance to hit him before they die.  This seems to work well for any ranged attackers so far, though I've not tried it on a Titan/FB/Clown yet.

[slothen]

use metal bolts.  One bar of copper/bronze for 25 bolts is pretty good, and they inflict significantly more harm.

Ballistae are pointless if they don't have metal arrowheads.

[scionkirk]

There's nothing more gratifying than seeing something die from having dozens of worn socks and loincloths dropped on it.

[Krawdad]

I normally do use metal bolts for everything, but after a couple hundred metal bolts shot at this FB I decided to switch a squad to wooden bolts and just have them whittle it down. The combat log didn't show a big difference in damage, every metal and wooden bolt that hit was said to have fractured or chipped the creature. I ended up killing it by dropping stones on it from 5z up, as was suggested here.

But yeah, I finally did get the ballista to hit a different FB and the wooden ballista arrow didn't do a damn thing. I should have guessed that, but I figured that since they killed the Siege Operator's children so effectively that maybe they would be worth a damn.

My embark only has Nickel and Gold so I try and keep the good ammo to be put to good purpose. I think I'll just use the wooden ballista arrows on some helmeted "volunteers" and train up the medical staff.

[slothen]

I think I'll just use the wooden ballista arrows on some helmeted "volunteers" and train up the medical staff.

wooden ballistae arrows literally do nothing because they are incredibly light.  They are regularly deflected by clothing.

[Krawdad]

Hmm they seem to do just fine against leather armored volunteers, and they definitely worked against the Siege Operator's clothed children. I think I am using the Broken Arrow mod though, so maybe that has something to do with it.

[Urist Da Vinci]

Regardless of modding, ballista arrows are currently bugged in that they are not sharp - they strike as blunt objects.

[oldark]

How are you able to dump things into a channel directly above it? When I've tried this in my forts the haulers get scared right on the edge and just drop stuff in place and run off.